


grace & choice

by mercuryhatter



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 09:58:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2020764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercuryhatter/pseuds/mercuryhatter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>preseries Anna and the choices leading up to her fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	grace & choice

Ostensibly, Haniel was the commander of a garrison of God’s warriors, a relatively high-ranked officer in the armies of Heaven-- which all sounded very exciting until one remembered that they were an army without a war. The war would come, they were all assured by those still in Heaven, and it would be glorious, blah blah blah, but that had become something between a bedtime story and a joke to Haniel and their angels. Uriel especially could keep them all entertained for hours with spot-on imitations of Zachariah’s pompous manner. They were all bored, the others, but they were still fundamentally satisfied, because that’s what angels were. Unlike humans, they all knew exactly where they fit in the universe, and they were completely sure of the fact that that place where they fit was the Right and Just place to be.

 

Haniel was not. Haniel was dissatisfied. Not doubting, not yet, but Haniel wanted more, and they knew that that feeling was not one that could be explained or shared with their siblings. Haniel tried once, with Castiel, the one that they had always been closest with, pushing at Castiel’s resolve and quiet acceptance with their words and finding no comprehension.

 

“Don’t you ever envy them?” Haniel pleaded one night, referring to the humans. Castiel looked at Haniel with a strange expression and took a long time to answer.

 

“Envy is a human feeling, Haniel,” they started, voice blank with the company line, but then, Castiel pressed their next words, soft and quiet, directly to Haniel’s center, as if fearful of being overheard, or perhaps just fearful of giving these thoughts a voice. “Sometimes I think I do.”

 

But that was the closest Haniel ever got, and they could never get back to that part of Castiel again, as if Castiel locked it up even tighter after that conversation. But Haniel treasured the glimpse they had gotten. Haniel knew this wasn’t easy, and they were coming to understand that it wasn’t something they could lead anyone to.

 

Haniel started leaving the garrison for longer and longer periods of time. No one questioned them, of course. Angels didn’t question. This filled Haniel with a strange sort of sadness, a resignation, even as they used it to their advantage. (In many ways it felt as if they had already said goodbye to the others, although they didn’t know it yet.) Haniel watched humans in all the mundane and wonderful pursuits, eventually letting their grace seep into old oaks and mycelium networks, any living organism strong enough to hold them. Too afraid still to take one of the human vessels that Haniel could feel burning bright across the world, but they were desperate for earthly sensation. The wind across their leaves and cool dirt holding their roots-- Haniel hadn’t felt this sort of ecstasy since they were new, still singing holies in the newly born Heavens. To think like this was probably blasphemy already, but Haniel delighted in that feeling as well. All feelings, sensations, emotions, all were beautiful, even if they were terrible, and Haniel wanted even more.

 

They visited cities, mountain towns, beach metropolises. They listened to the babble of voices in every tongue, carrying every kind of feeling, clamor through the phone lines. Haniel decided privately, secretly, that she would be called Anna, and that she was a woman. These revelations unfurled in her being, and they felt as safe and true and important as the word of God.

 

She was in a midsized, unimportant town in a midsized, unimportant state called Kansas when she felt one of her vessels, closer to her than a vessel had ever been. A sixteen-year-old girl called Beth, who dyed her hair crayon red and wore all black even in the summer and had parents who loved her but disapproved of her every decision, and Anna thought immediately, how fitting. It felt inevitable that Anna would visit this girl in a dream and ask her a question.

 

“Sure, okay,” Beth said, and Anna occupied a human vessel for the first time.

 

It was like _nothing_ Anna had ever experienced. She was warm with the tiny, flickering light of life, pulsing through her in surges of blood that formed beats at her wrists and neck and deep inside her chest that she could feel and count. Her lungs expanded and contracted and, delighted, she held her breath just to feel the relief when she let the air rush back in. All she did that first night was breathe, and feel her heartbeats, and move her limbs, smothering bubbles of laughter behind her hands when she felt Beth tell her irritably not to wake her parents. She watched the sun rise with huge human eyes and it made her cry, which was an incredible sensation all by itself. She had never laughed or cried like this before, never, her emotions usually pinned under layers of smothering grace, and she marveled at the human capability for release, the relief that came from just letting herself cry.

 

Anna left Beth alone when the girl started thinking about how it was time for school soon, and flew back as fast as she could to her garrison, ebullient with joy. It was night where the angels were on the other side of the world, and she composed herself long enough to sound collected when she called Castiel to her side. Castiel was confused, tentatively hopeful, they could feel her joy where it boiled under the surface, but they couldn’t understand what it meant.

 

“Is this it? Has it begun?” they asked, speaking, of course, of the promised war, the only thing they were made for.

 

“No, Castiel. Something far more wonderful. I need to speak to you in confidence.”

 

“Of course,” Castiel said immediately.

 

“I took a human vessel,” Anna revealed, allowing the full extent of her emotion to spill over. Castiel felt it, and she felt in return Castiel’s uncertainty and increased confusion.

 

“For what purpose?”

 

“Because it’s _incredible_ ,” Anna gushed. “Castiel, you can’t imagine. I knew that humans are God’s finest work and I loved them, but I never understood-- it’s so much better than this, what we are. They’re _alive_ , really alive, in ways that we can’t even understand. Castiel-- I want to be one.” Anna was half surprised at herself even as she said this, but now that it was voiced, it was obvious. She looked at Castiel expectantly, too caught up in her excitement to remember that Castiel wasn’t like her, not really.

 

“Haniel, you cannot say these things,” they said, harshly, like a blow. “You can’t _be_ a human. You shouldn’t have even taken a vessel without reason. We are supposed to protect them, not use them for whatever absurdity this is. I expected better from you as my commander.”

 

“And why can’t I be one?” Anna threw back wildly. “Why would God want to keep us from this? _Why_ do we have to protect them-- and furthermore, from what? This vague threat of war that hasn’t come to pass in thousands of years? And in the meantime, they still suffer! They have never stopped suffering, Castiel! We have done nothing for them! More and more of them turn from God every day, and I-- I can’t blame them!”

 

There was a silence cold enough to crystallize the air between them, while Anna trembled at her own words, and Castiel… she didn’t know what they were feeling. When Castiel finally spoke, their voice was deep with grief.

 

“Where is your faith, Haniel?”

 

“My faith is with the humans. With _life_ ,” she replied fiercely. “And my name is Anna. I can feel your grace crying out for me as if I’m already dead, Castiel. Stop. You are losing me, but I am not dead.”

 

There was another silence, and then, quiet and heavy:

 

“What would you have me do?”

 

It was that which made Anna finally give up on the hope that she could bring Castiel with her, a hope she hadn’t truly realized she was harboring until that moment. After all this and Castiel was still asking her for guidance, still ready to follow her orders, because that was what they did, and they couldn’t know any different.

 

“Tell them… I don’t know. Tell them I left. Don’t tell them why, just say that you don’t know. I was reassigned. I leave you in command.”

 

“Will you return?”

  
“No, Castiel. I won’t.”


End file.
